


Endlessly

by FJBryan



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:43:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FJBryan/pseuds/FJBryan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A terrible accident forces Ray to reconsider his relationship with Bodie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endlessly

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the zine "Never Far Apart 2" in 2009.

30 March 1983

The meeting Cowley scheduled with his Russian intelligence contact went precisely as planned, some verbal fencing but nobody perforated, and the information well worth the effort. After the exchange was completed, however, making their way out of the abandoned warehouse turned into a much trickier problem for Bodie, his partner, and CI5's Controller.

"Stop!" Bodie shouted, and the other two men halted immediately, just outside the warehouse door. The Cortina was still sixty feet away, parked in a courtyard cul-de-sac formed by more vacant buildings.

The Cortina, where Lewis sat waiting in the driver's seat--Bodie saw something about him that was off-kilter, not right. Lack of movement, head tilted wrong. He yanked Cowley behind a stack of crates as the first barrage of gunfire began spitting up dirt and gravel only a metre in front of them.

Bodie already had his .357 out, eyes scanning the surrounding warehouse roofs for more danger, when he heard Doyle yell, "Snipers! On the rooftop. There!"

"Can we make it to the car?" Cowley asked.

Bodie shook his head. "No way, sir. They shot Lewis from above. Angled it through his side window so we wouldn't see a shattered windscreen. Go out there and we'll be as dead as Lewis."

With a wave of his gun, Doyle motioned them back towards the warehouse, a strategic retreat that acknowledged the futility of making for the car.

The situation should have deteriorated rapidly: with a limping boss and snipers suddenly firing down from warehouses on three sides, their odds weren’t good, but either the ineptness of their attackers or dumb luck got Bodie and his boss back under cover in the warehouse entrance in only a few seconds. An eye blink later, Doyle joined them, though not without injury. A crease to his jacket sleeve was coloured red around the edges and getting redder. Cowley stripped off his tie for a makeshift tourniquet, staunching the flow of blood for the moment.

“Suggestions?” Bodie asked, his back to Doyle and their boss, eyes already looking for another exit route, skimming the dirty, painted-over windows thirty feet off the ground and the brick walls of the warehouse that stretched as far as he could see. Only three sets of footprints led deeper into the warehouse—their own, from moments earlier, going to the meet. Now, crouched just inside the entryway, they had a temporary reprieve, but their pursuers would catch them up soon enough. The next few minutes were critical if they wanted to survive.

“No doors except at the far end, where the Russians went out. It’s why we picked this one,” Cowley replied. “Fewer third party interruptions.”

“Whaddya bet they’ve got gunmen covering that end, just in case?” Doyle offered, his eyes skipping from loading dock to pallets and back to the car where Lewis sat, dead.

“No bet,” Bodie replied, still scanning the warehouse interior for options. “They’ll be there. Both exits covered, and they control the roof.” He spied a set of stairs halfway along the warehouse wall, leading downwards into the dark. “What about down? Could we get to the water’s edge using those?” Bodie motioned towards the steps, and Cowley flicked his eyes over it, shaking his head.

“Door nailed shut from the far side, and the staircase is unsafe, likely to collapse. Before we chose this warehouse, both sides had to be confident that there were only two ways in and out,” Cowley replied. He was still toggling his R/T switch, but all he’d got thus far was static.

Doyle squeezed off a shot, dropping one of the gunmen who came within range of his .357. “Well, that one won’t be collecting a pay packet from whoever’s running this mob,” he said grimly. Further sounds of movement behind the crates suggested their attackers weren't running away, however. The shadows were getting closer, and massing for some sort of assault. Another one foolishly stuck his head out from behind the pallets stacked only twenty feet away, and Doyle rewarded his bravery with a shot that narrowly missed. The ricochet sent wood chips flying. “How much ammo've you got, Bodie?”

“Three clips,” he answered without even checking, knowing that Doyle would have the same. “Not enough if they pour in from the far end, or get directly above us and start shooting from there. Ingrams and Uzis trump handguns on Tuesdays….”

“And every other day of the week ending in Y,” Doyle finished for him. And the thugs would try again; it was merely a matter of time.

If holding out was impossible, they had limited options: run or get rescued. Since the cavalry wasn’t responding by R/T, running was the only choice left. Bodie’s eyes moved rapidly from the warehouse’s far doorway, where through the gloom he detected pale outlines of men entering stealthily, to up above, where through grimy skylights he saw two others sprinting and stopping on the exterior catwalk in jagged alternation, moving shadows marking their advance. They were getting damned close.

Hemmed in, with time running out, Bodie made a decision. “I’ll test the stairs. If I can get the door open, you follow.”

“Bo—“ Doyle started to protest, but Cowley cut him off. “Try, 3.7.”

Bodie passed one of his ammo clips to Doyle, then started picking his way towards the staircase, some forty feet along from the warehouse entrance where Doyle and Cowley would soon be re-enacting Custer’s Last Stand. Fervently hoping the men above wouldn't track his movement and open fire while he was so exposed, Bodie hugged the brick wall, slithering along its cracked surface until he reached the top of the rickety staircase. It wasn’t encouraging: no railings, cracked boards, and at least a twenty-foot drop to some sort of concrete floor he could make out between the multiple treads that were missing entirely. He’d have to chance going down, crossing those gaps, without the whole staircase collapsing—time was running out, for now he heard Doyle’s gun firing more rapidly behind him, joined by the barking report of Cowley’s snub-nosed shooter. He holstered his own weapon; reaching the bottom of the staircase, not dropping enemy agents, had to take top priority now.

Creeping gingerly, Bodie kept off the centre of each step, hoping the strength of the wood remained strongest where it connected to the stair’s sides. Even so, each time he shifted his weight the wood creaked and shuddered horribly. Bodie worked his way down five steps, with another dozen to go before he could reach the barricaded door, when he encountered the biggest obstacle: three missing treads in a row, nearly a five-foot gap. Deep breath, then he leapt from his own stair across the space, his outstretched foot landing easily on the far side, though he barely managed to stop himself from pitching forward and headlong down the remaining stairs.

Just when he was congratulating himself on reaching the other side and saving his balance, an ominous crack began, and what balance he’d regained was lost—the entire staircase beneath him was giving way. Bodie windmilled his arms futilely, clutching for a handhold that wasn’t there, and tried to catch another tread before he fell through the gap. But the plank he grabbed with fingertips gave way like matchsticks, showering him with wood as he dropped, knocking him sideways towards the bricks as gravity pulled him to the concrete below.

He shouted as he fell—“Doyle!”—but the gunfire had become so intense he wasn’t sure he’d been heard. Bodie waited for the pain he knew he would feel in his ankles and legs. Then his head struck something solidly unforgiving, and all was darkness.

2 April 1983

The drab hospital room held four people: a dark-haired man, apparently asleep in bed with his left arm in a cast from shoulder to elbow and a heavily taped ankle, a petite blonde nurse dutifully swabbing his legs as part of his bath, and two other men close to the door, rapidly trading words. With her attention on the patient's legs, taking care not to wet the bandages, the pretty nurse didn't listen too closely to the brusque exchange between doctor and CI5 agent

"You keep saying you think he will wake up, but when?”

“When his body has healed enough. He may never recover, Mr Doyle. Most patients in comas either awaken in the first week, or linger for much longer, months, even years. It’s very common with head injuries like Mr Bodie’s for—”

“Will moving him to another facility make any difference?”

“We’re not set up for long term care, Mr Doyle. Hospital beds are a precious resource reserved for patients with urgent needs.”

“And his case is no longer urgent?!”

“I know you care, Mr Doyle. The entire staff of St Thomas's knows. But keeping him here won’t increase his chances of recovery.”

“What will?”

The two men near the door took their war of words out into the hallway and the door swung shut.

“You’ve got the loveliest skin, Mr Bodie,” the nurse said to herself as she finished washing and rinsing his knees. Dropping her cloth into the water, she set the shallow pan to one side and turned round to look at her handsome patient’s face. “I’ll be sorry when they move you.”

6 April 1983

Doyle yawned broadly as he downshifted through Chelmsford, on his way to rejoining the A12 towards Kelvedon. After two roundtrips from London to Alleyn's Wood in as many days, however, 4.5 could've made the drive in his sleep. Given how hard Cowley was running them after the warehouse job, he might have to.

Alleyn’s Wood served as a convalescent care facility for badly injured agents and operatives needing extensive physical therapy. Set in Kelvedon, it was an easy train ride from Liverpool Street Station for visitors who wanted to see recuperating husbands, brothers, and fathers. Jointly operated by MI6, Special Branch, CI5, and other shadowy parts of England’s intelligence forces, the centre took particular care of patients whose needs ranged from mental aberrations brought on by a Lubyanka vacation to recovery from multiple gunshot wounds. Doyle knew it well. Two years before, he’d stayed at Alleyn’s Wood for three long months, regaining full range of motion in his upper body following the Mayli shooting. Bodie had visited him regularly, or at least as often as he could.

Now Doyle was the one driving 90 minutes out of London each day to see his wounded partner. Wounded and thus far unresponsive partner, to be exact. Doyle couldn’t quite explain why he made the pilgrimage daily, but the trip had become a fixture in his schedule the last three days, non-negotiable. He had to see Bodie.

Swinging the nose of his Capri into the facility's car park, Doyle slowed the car to a crawl. He found a space at the far end, facing a run-down cricket pitch that some local boys were in the midst of repairing. The boundary was unclear, and they were marking the edges and placing the stumps before beginning their game. It would take quite a batter to send a ball into the car park, so he locked the Capri and hoped none of the lads played for a first-class county team.

He watched long enough to see the first youth swing away at the red ball, batting it past the waiting opposition. The boy stopped dashing between the ends once the other side conceded six, and Doyle whistled his encouragement before walking towards the hospital’s imposing entrance. As he signed in, his expression drooped a little, the sombreness of the interior world a contrast with the exuberance of the boys playing outside.

Doyle rallied his spirits and put a smile on his face as he reached the door to Bodie’s room, reminding himself what the doctors had said: continue to talk and act as if everything were normal, even if Bodie did not answer.

"Acting normal" was more important than ever, now that Bodie had been transferred. Other agents had visited while 3.7 was in a London hospital the first few days; hope seemed a more widely shared commodity then, too. But after Bodie's transfer to Kelvedon, only Doyle continued to come. He told himself he was making up for squad mates who no longer bothered.

It was daylight, for a change. Doyle came at noon or at midnight, whenever the old man said he was off duty. At the start, the staff had tried arguing with him about proper visiting hours, until they saw he was implacable. The doctors eventually conceded the point: it made no sense to bar the door when a busy agent came to talk to a comatose man. Where was the harm? Doyle had simply railed against their rules until they stopped hassling him—all that mattered was being with Bodie.

Doyle pushed the door open and walked in jauntily, tossing his jacket onto a chair and sprawling in a second one as he started talking, already aware that Bodie’s eyes were still closed, as they had been for the last week. “Mate, you missed a great shot outside. Local kid knocked one beyond the boundary just now, would’ve given what’s-'is-name, that fellow you’re always rabbitin’ on about…Botham! Would’ve given Botham a nasty turn. Good thing the Ashes aren’t for another two years, maybe by then he’ll be good enough to play for England, eh?” The wide smile on Doyle’s face faded slightly, as it always did when he got no reply.

He looked around the room, taking inventory. Two tables, two chairs, two beds, one Bodie. The other bed in the room was temporarily unoccupied, the man who slept there most likely gone for his physical therapy. Ted. Probably Special Branch, from things he’d mentioned previously. Due to be released next week some time, or so he thought. Otherwise, nothing much had changed about the room since the day before, except a card propped up on Bodie’s bedside table.

“See you’ve got someone writing to ya, eh?” Doyle eased forward in the chair and picked up the card, reading it aloud. “Starts nice enough: ‘Please get well soon.’ Pretty flowers on the front, too.” Doyle opened the card, and couldn't help snickering. “’You are missed.’ I'll say! Looks like half the secretarial pool signed this one, Bodie. Probably the half you haven’t dated yet, hopin’ you’ll wake up and take ‘em out,” he added with a smirk. “Y’know, 6.2 and 6.5 are really making hay on the third floor while you’re laid up. Don’t know what’ll come of letting them have first crack at every new face in Files. They’re getting above themselves, mate—need you to come back and show those girls what they’re missing.”

He put the card down, knowing that a stack of others like it were probably inside the bedside table drawer. He himself had received similar cards during his recuperation—but at least he’d been able to read them.

As he leaned back in the chair, Doyle mentally reviewed the material he had ready for his partner's listening pleasure. Each day he stored up CI5 gossip to tell Bodie, and one bit was particularly juicy, even sensitive, given their location. He looked towards the door, but it remained firmly shut, and he thought it safe to talk. Doyle edged the chair up until it touched Bodie’s bed, lowered his voice a little, and began speaking rapidly.

“Hey, the Cow finally figured out who hired the gang that pulled the warehouse job. He never liked the answers we got from the two I didn’t kill.” Doyle’s face clouded momentarily, remembering how close he and Cowley had come to running out of ammunition as they picked their attackers off one by one. Pinned down, they couldn't respond when they heard Bodie cry out. “He didn’t believe Roskolnikoff set those men on us, not after two years of exchanging information fair and square, so he kept digging, and you know who he connected them to yesterday? Schuman.” Doyle slapped his knee for emphasis. “East German bastard. It was Kreiber who made the payoff. Kreiber means Schuman, and Schuman probably means—yup, your pal and mine—Willis.” Doyle shook his head in disgust, glanced at the still-closed door, then looked back to Bodie and continued. “Cowley figures that Willis didn’t want CI5 to have Roskolnikoff’s information if MI6 couldn’t have it too, so he called in a favour. Too bad it didn’t work.”

Doyle looked at Bodie: pale, motionless with the cast and heavy bandages in place, still unconscious after nearly a week in hospital. He amended the statement. “Almost didn’t work.”

Doyle glanced away, looking out the window, seeing the dense undergrowth crowding up against it. “You really ought to have a room t’other side of the building, mate. Least that way you could watch the match. Those lads’ll have that pitch sorted out, they've got the look, y’know? Probably play all summer long. How about I see if I can fix you up?”

At just that moment, a nurse, grey haired but full of bustle, entered the room with a set of bed linens under her arm. Doyle recognised her: Jenkins, a grandmotherly sort. He rose from his chair and went to aid her as she refitted the sheets on Ted’s bed. Their conversation quickly turned to rooms, locations, and money.

“Why's it cost extra? That man's given his body for CI5."

"Those rooms are a special allotment, part of the private side of our facility. Not government subsidised."

"Thirty pounds a week is steep."

“They’re single rooms, Mr Doyle, reserved for special cases, and your Mr Cowley doesn't seem to think this is a special case. The room'd cost more if he weren't already a patient here.”

“Who do I see to arrange it?”

“Filson is in charge of matters like that. Last door at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you, Sister.”

“No trouble at all, Mr Doyle.”

When Doyle swung back towards his partner’s bed, he was already preparing to run Filson to earth the same way he chased villains: remorselessly. He gathered up his jacket and said to Bodie, “You’ll be watching cricket before you know it.”

15 April 1983

A fleeting patch of sunshine had replaced the typical overcast dullness of spring, and when Doyle cracked open the door to Bodie's room, he heard the faint smack of bat against ball through the two large windows overlooking the makeshift pitch. The young cricket players were taking advantage of the fair weather.

As Doyle was about to slip into the room, one of the nurses stopped him.

“Mr Doyle!! Whatever happened to your arm?”

“A misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about. I’m a quick healer.”

“No wonder we didn’t see you this week.”

“Any change, Sister?”

“None at all, I’m afraid.”

“I’m glad you’re taking care of him. He needs it.”

“It’s good to see you again, Mr Doyle.”

After giving her a smile of farewell, Doyle entered the room. Limping slightly, he made for the closest chair, setting aside his cane and settling himself before taking a good look at the man who slept on.

“Looks like we’ve got a matched set, eh, Bodie?” Doyle brandished his own cast towards the bed, wincing a little as the weight pulled on his shoulder. “My break's a hairline—just like yours. Made driving up here a royal pain, I tell you. Crawling along 'cause I couldn't really manage the gearshift with my arm done up this way. " He grimaced again, the half-cast on his upper arm causing him a momentary twinge. "But we're not identical twins, precisely. You'll be out of your cast before I am. Got a head start healing, you do."

He twisted in the seat a little, finding a more comfortable position with difficulty. "I’ve been in hospital meself the past week. Sorry I couldn’t come see you, but they wouldn’t let me out ‘til they were sure the river water was out of my lungs.”

Doyle grinned broadly, remembering the comedy-filled chase that had ended on the Thames at dawn. “You’d have loved it, Bodie. These two idiots think they’re going to get away in a rowboat, can you believe it? As if Cowley wasn’t already on to the river police to tow them in if they’d gone another hundred feet. I could have stood on shore and kept shooting—I’d already winged one of ‘em, and they couldn’t shoot worth anything, dozy bastards. But Cowley wanted them alive, and in a rocking boat I might’ve killed one by mistake, so I jumped in and swam after them. They weren’t more than ten feet out, and you could tell, neither of ‘em knew beans about boats. Didn’t count on one of ‘em using an oar to dent my forehead and rearrange my arm, though. Good thing Murph was there to pull me out.”

Doyle reached out and patted Bodie’s leg, covered by a thin sheet. “I think they’ve finally realised you don’t need extra blankets.”

He did a double take, as his fingers figured out something his eyes had not. “They took off the ankle bandages! When—?” Doyle’s eyes flew from foot to face, only to be reminded once again that Bodie wasn’t answering questions. Doyle still had a hard time adjusting to Bodie’s silence; he kept expecting the man to crack open an eyelid and say the coma act had been a big hoax.

Some joke.

As Bodie refused to give in and answer his question, Doyle conceded. “Okay, I’ll ask Jenkins the next time I see her.” He lifted his left arm, shrouded in plaster, and nodded to Bodie’s, adding, “Haveta see about getting a picture of the two of us, both with casts on our left arms. What a coincidence, huh?” He thought of what Bodie would say, seeing a snap like that, and smiled at the "double-act" jokes he'd probably make.

Probably.

Doyle stopped talking, and just looked at his silent, sleeping partner. No clock measured the passage of time in that room, but Doyle could’ve told anyone down to the hour and minute when he’d last heard Bodie’s voice.

“Wish you’d wake up, Bodie. Work's not much fun without you.” His hand continued to caress the shin and calf beneath the sheet, slow movements made without thinking. “I miss you.”

20 April 1983

He pushed the door open and stalked in, but for once was unable to claim his regular seat at Bodie’s right side. “As usual, you have to do everything first,” Doyle teased, watching as doctor and nurse worked in tandem to remove the cast from Bodie’s left arm. They were nearly done opening the section from shoulder to elbow: a shower of plaster chips flew off the doctor's rotary blade. More delicate manoeuvring was required at the elbow joint, where they worked with a tiny saw and pair of heavy-duty clippers. Doyle wasn’t watching them; his eyes were drawn to the cast's effects on Bodie’s flesh. After being encased in plaster for three weeks, the paleness of his partner’s skin seemed even more pronounced; the skin newly released was pearly translucent and delicate when compared to the rest of him.

“Think you’ll be up to helping us with his physical therapy on the arm, Mr Doyle?” asked Nurse Jenkins, her sharp eyes never leaving her task. Her hair might be shot through with grey, but she knew who Bodie’s visitor was, even with her back turned. All the nurses at Alleyn’s Wood knew.

“You haven’t put me on payroll yet for helping with his ankle, so why should I?” Doyle objected, tongue planted firmly in cheek. He watched as the cast around Bodie’s arm finally cracked and fell apart along the seams. He smiled, thinking how his prediction had come true: Bodie was out of his cast first—and who would be doing the therapy, tugging and stretching those muscles every day? “Just like you to leave me the dirty work,” he kidded, but 3.7's closed eyes did not glint to acknowledge the jest. Bodie slept on, oblivious.

The doctor, wiping his hands off on a towel, seemed to know exactly what Doyle meant. “Very true. He’ll be needing physical therapy on this arm starting right away. Just stretching and easy movements for now, to loosen the muscles. You’ll remember them from before, yes?” Doyle’s recovery from heart surgery had made him a minor celebrity at the centre two years earlier.

“I remember.”

The nurse gathered the fragments of cast and placed them in the bin, then carried the saw and clippers out of the room as she went. The doctor began to follow, but paused first to say, “He’s very lucky to have a friend like you, Mr Doyle. Even Mr Cowley only manages once a week. That you get out here every day amazes me.”

His eyes never leaving the dark-haired sleeper, Doyle shook his head, responding, “If you knew him like I do, you wouldn’t be surprised at all.” He turned to look at the doctor, wordlessly shrugging his shoulders.

The doctor gestured for him to come out of the room, and Doyle followed, curious. In the hallway, he turned to Doyle, a look of sympathy on his face. "It's nearly three weeks, Mr Doyle. You know what that means?"

His heart sinking, 4.5 replied with a voice that he barely kept from shaking. "The longer it takes, the less likely he is to wake up."

The doctor nodded in grim agreement. "According to every test we can run, his chances are at best 50-50. He mumbles occasional words, nothing coherent, but he won't open his eyes."

"But he does respond to pain," Doyle interjected. "He flinches; I've seen it." Watching the therapy sessions, he'd seen it happen twice.

"True." The look of sorrow he spared Doyle made it apparent how little he credited that. "This is a severe coma, Mr Doyle. You must be prepared for the possibility that your friend may not come out of it." He reached out and squeezed Doyle's shoulder in commiseration. "We will hope for the best, but it doesn't look good."

After the doctor left him, Doyle re-entered the room, eased himself into a chair, and covered Bodie’s left hand with his right. Doyle sat staring at his partner for a few moments, gazing at Bodie's sleeping form, a picture of repose that normally made him smile. Now sleep meant something else altogether, and he willed his partner to respond to the sound of his voice. "You've got to wake up, Bodie." He looked away, out the window, and swallowed down the feeling of grief that was rising from the pit of his stomach.

A cricket bat sounded sharply in the distance, and he could see boys running headlong from one end of the cricket pitch to the other, their limbs dappled with spring's soft sunshine. "Oy, that kid's hit another one near the whatchamacallit. Third man." Doyle chuckled. "Remember the first time you told me there was a fielder called a 'third man' and we couldn't stop the Alida Valli jokes for days?" His eyes crinkled, then closed, as he recalled the running gag Bodie had spun, assigning CI5 agents to cricket positions with their arcane names. "Mate, only you would put Cowley at 'fine leg' and Murphy at 'short'." He turned again towards the bed, adding, "And me at 'golly gully' and yourself at 'fly-slip'. As if your flies ever slipped except on purpose." He shook his head in mock disgust. "How you got me to follow cricket is a wonder. But then, I'd do anything, wouldn't I--all you had to do was ask." The memories were threatening to ambush him, rising up unbidden before his eyes with images of Bodie in the rest room, sipping tea and spouting jokes about sports, pulling pranks in the locker room, behind the wheel of the Capri and rocketing toward danger. Every vibrant memory spawned a new one, nearly overwhelming him, and he swallowed hard on the last: the snipers all dead or wounded, yelling for Bodie and hearing no reply, digging through rubble with bleeding hands until he found his partner, unconscious, broken. Close to dead. An agony of waiting for the ambulance, unable to wake the man who was everything to him.

A rattled cart in the hallway recalled him from that moment of heart-stopping panic and reminded Doyle where he was. They weren't finished yet. Not if he had anything to do with it. Giving the hand he cupped a gentle squeeze, Doyle said softly, “Know you through and through, mate. Didn’t know what that meant ‘til I had it taken away, though.” Doyle lifted his partner’s hand to give it a light kiss across the knuckles, then replaced it on the bed, letting his thumb gently rub over the back of Bodie’s hand. “You’ve gotta wake up, Bodie, you dumb crud. You can't go out like this.” A sheen of moisture made his vision start to waver.

Something deep in Doyle’s chest threatened to rise up and swamp him if he didn’t clear his throat and think of something ridiculously ordinary to say, and quickly. “You’ll never guess what happened to that idiot McCabe last night while he was on obbo, watching that squat in Queensway. Only managed to get himself nicked as a peeping Tom by the local boys in blue!” And another story about CI5’s finest was woven for the benefit of the sleeping man, while helping the storyteller keep his worst fears at bay.

26 April 1983

“Ah mate, you’re missing a beautiful day,” Doyle offered, as he entered Bodie’s room. Improbably, sunshine was streaming in through both windows, and the cricket players were running and playing, strong white figures against a backdrop of gently waving green. They were practising, team mates against team mates, preparing for a bank holiday match coming up soon. After turning his chair to face the window, Doyle manoeuvred it until he could settle into it directly beside the bed; his hand dropped atop Bodie’s forearm so that the practice match could be seen in the distance from chair and bed alike. The cast was gone from Doyle’s arm, victim of a nurse’s thin blade and his own impatience to be rid of the encumbrance a few weeks early. The sling was 4.5's only concession to the need for support; he'd had to promise to wear it in exchange for being released from the cast.

“Can’t believe it! Cowley’s got you moving house again. Just like him, the inflexible old buzzard.” Doyle tried to hang on to his indignation, but it faded fast. He glanced away from the windows and back to his unconscious friend. With resignation, he admitted, “It’s been a month, and you were already overdue for a move this spring. We both were. Just like him to wait until you couldn't argue back.” He squeezed Bodie’s arm and added softly, “Told him not to put your things in storage.” Doyle recalled the books lovingly packed, the kendo shinai sheathed, awaiting another bout with Shusai.

The emptiness of Bodie’s flat, after a month without Bodie himself, had been a renewed blow to Doyle—a reminder of the man whose active presence he craved but could not have. He’d held his rekindled grief and anger at bay the only way he knew how—by not asking, but telling one startled George Cowley what would happen to his partner’s belongings. “Not like you have that much anyhow. So it’s coming to mine. That’s what I’ll be doing next Saturday: shifting house for you and me. Just so you know.”

A solid thwack shifted his attention back to the game outside. “That’s another six. You'd say that lad's got promise.” Abruptly, Doyle saw the strong, sure-footed batter and the young men scattered about the field for what they were: healthy, almost too healthy. Doyle's fingers stroked Bodie's arm, considering: after a month of inactivity, the muscles were thinner, less obvious. “You're wasting away to skin and bones, y'know? Can’t have that, sunshine. Need you strong, so you can catch bad guys when you wake up. Stop skiving!” If Doyle hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Bodie smiled at this—but he did know better.

“Eh, what do you want me to do with the guns? You usually clean ‘em every few months, and they could use it.” Doyle knew he wasn’t going to get an answer, but then he had an inspiration. As if Bodie had spoken aloud, Doyle replied, “Bring ‘em here and clean ‘em? Sure. Let’s do it.” It might be bending a few rules; at this point, Doyle didn’t care.

29 April 1983

It was Friday night, and Doyle marked the week’s end by bringing two guns to Bodie’s room for cleaning. He knew how to clean modern weapons, but the older models he'd brought with him offered some challenges. He dropped the overnight bag with guns and cleaning supplies next to Bodie's bed and then took off his jacket and draped it over the chair back. The incongruity of what he was doing struck him: he realised how peculiar it was for him to be sitting next to a comatose man cleaning guns on a Friday night when any normal man would be in a pub, looking for a bird.

Pub? Truth to tell, it had been weeks since Doyle’d been inside a pub except for work. More to the point, he hadn’t had a conversation with anyone except members of the squad or hospital staff unless ordered to, and frankly, he was content with that. He’d be more content, though, if Bodie would sit up and tell him the gag was over, it had all been a put-on. Or tell him off at the top of his lungs. Anything, anything at all. His hope was getting a little frayed around the edges with each passing week and no improvement.

Doyle spread out a towel across Bodie’s lap and put the soft chamois and small canister of gun oil near his partner’s open hand. Then he arranged another towel along the edge of the bed for himself, and took out the evening’s project. For some guns, he knew what to do, but for others, like the antique percussion revolver, lying next to the Luger, he wasn't quite as certain. He'd work by instinct, go slow.

Somehow, while his fingers pulled apart metal from metal, he kept up a running commentary on everything he knew about Bodie's entire gun collection: where Bodie had purchased each gun (or liberated it, as the case might be), whether Doyle had ever been allowed to fire it (true for almost all of them, except the oldest two), whether the guns had been appraised (four were genuine collectors’ items, but he knew Bodie loved them too well to put them under lock and key), and what Doyle should do with them once they were cleaned.

“I’ve got a great new flat, Bodie. You should see it—and you would, if you’d ever wake up, lazybones. Nice second storey place, though it makes moving in tomorrow a right pain." He tipped some oil onto the chamois and began to rub. "For once, Cowley didn’t send me to live with rats in Southwark just to save tuppence. This place is up near Regent’s Park, lovely views. And a wall that’s perfect…well, I was thinking about putting the guns up on it, if you don’t mind?” In fact, the two he had cleaned and left behind in London were ready to be mounted above the fireplace with room for a dozen more, but Doyle asked anyway, out of habit. After a long month of not being answered, however, he no longer expected a reply to the question. Doyle’s head stayed bent, his thoughts focused on the task of polishing the barrel of the old Colt revolver.

It was the sound of the crisp pillow case rustling as Bodie’s head moved that snapped Doyle to attention. He dropped the gun to the bed and grabbed for Bodie’s hand. “You’re awake! Wake up, Bodie!” As much plea as command, Doyle expected blue eyes to open, but they didn’t.

He massaged Bodie's fingers with his own hand, gun oil smearing palm to palm, desperate as he wrapped Bodie’s hand within his own. He summoned the direst threat he knew: “Wake up, 3.7, do you want George Cowley to come through that door when you’re asleep on the job?” Belatedly, Doyle realised he should call for help and reached for the nurse call button, pressing it frantically while he jostled his partner gently and called his name.

Bodie’s head rolled again, this time towards the door. His eyelids twitched open, and as Nurse Jenkins shot through the door, they opened wider before closing again. “I saw it, I saw it!” she exclaimed. She took over trying to rouse Bodie while Doyle hurriedly dumped the disassembled weapons into his carryall with the rags and oil. No one at the facility had told him not to bring guns there, but somehow he knew they would frown on it if they found out. Distraction disposed of, the two of them called and called, but Bodie did nothing more than wrinkle up his eyebrows, as if disturbed by the noise.

After a few minutes when neither of them could elicit a better response, Nurse Jenkins turned to Doyle. “Whatever you’ve been doing, don’t stop, Mr Doyle. If anyone can wake him, you can.” She hurried from the room to fetch a doctor, while Doyle considered for a moment what might make Bodie react. Slugging the man was out of the question, and yelling at him hadn’t had much success. “If I had a steaming platter of food or Brigitte Bardot with me, bet you’d wake up for that,” he muttered; then an idea came to him. He reached down into the carryall and retrieved the can of gun oil and cleaning rags. The smell was faint, but tangible: gunpowder. Cordite. Danger. Waving it under his partner’s nose, Doyle waited for a reaction--and got one, Bodie's eyelids fluttering once, while doctor and nurse pushed through the door as if on cue.

“Well done, Mr Doyle, well done. Wake up, Mr Bodie!”

Eyes stayed shut, but slurred words came out. “Five mo’ minutes.”

Recognizing that tactic of old, Doyle breathed fire. “Haven’t got five more, Bodie. Work! Now! Or Cowley’ll have us both filing ‘til Christmas.”

The eyes blinked and opened halfway, glassy and unseeing, but the doctor seized the opportunity. “I’m Dr Connors, and I have some questions for you, Mr Bodie. Do you know what year it is?"

"1983."

"Do you know this man's name?" He gestured to Doyle.

Blue eyes focused, concentrated. "Pillock." A tiny curl at the corner of his lip made Doyle's heart flutter. _He's back. Bodie!_

The reply didn't rattle Connors. He got Bodie to answer a few more questions before the agent lapsed into sleep.

Even before Doyle could ask for predictions, Connors began telling him about recovery rates and the now-reduced likelihood of residual brain trauma. He listened, distractedly, but he had a hard time concentrating on the good doctor’s words, still too elated from seeing his partner move under his own power for the first time in nearly five weeks. His eyes remained fastened on a dark-haired wonder who had beaten the odds, to wake up at last.

Now, Doyle knew, he had real problems. His newborn feelings for Bodie weren't going away. He wanted…something, even if he wasn't precisely sure what that something was. How long would it take his sharp-eyed partner to spot some change in his behaviour? About thirty seconds. If that. But how could Ray tell him that things had changed, that he had changed? He hadn’t a clue, and if Bodie hadn’t woken up, he’d never have had to. One strong whiff of cordite, though, and the Bisto Kids were in trouble again.

2 May 1983 (morning)

Three days after his awakening, Bodie was sitting up in bed, watching the rain stream down the windows like it never intended to stop. Still weak, he was looking forward to, well, whatever Doyle could sneak in that evening. Hospital food was the pits.

His door swung open, but it wasn’t the man he expected. Instead, in walked his ginger-haired boss, trailed by lanky Murphy, who checked the windows purely from habit, never mind that it was a secured facility. With a nod to Bodie, Murphy retired to the hall, while George Cowley lowered himself into the chair that stayed near Bodie’s right hand.

“Right glad I am to see you awake, lad.” Cowley’s eyebrows contracted as he glanced about the room, before rounding to face his agent. “The doctor tells me you’re already on the mend, and likely to be back on your feet in as little as eight weeks.”

Bodie nodded, grinning wryly. “Just in time for the summer bombing season, sir.”

The Scot smiled, then it was all business. “I presume Doyle told you about Lewis's last-minute distress call to HQ."

The agent nodded, grateful the cavalry had shown up in the nick of time. Otherwise he might've ended up on a slab in the morgue. They all might have.

A trifle sadly, Cowley added, "I wish I hadn’t sent you down those stairs, 3.7.” He had the good grace to look sorry, and Bodie cut off the apology before it went any further.

“Part of the job. I’m grateful for the room though, sir. Hate sharing, and I know a private room like this isn't regular NHS fare.”

Cowley looked at Bodie, now openly curious. “CI5 didn’t authorise this, Bodie.”

Bodie’s eyes narrowed. “Well, who’s paying for it?” If it wasn’t Cowley, then….

“I had a call last month from your solicitor, Graves." It was clear who Cowley thought was responsible.

Questions cleared from the pale face, as consternation replaced it. “What did he say?”

“Just that he hadn’t heard from you on April first, as usual, and after waiting a few weeks, his instructions were to contact my office and ask for Mr Doyle or myself, in that order. Once we verified who he was, and what he was, I gave him 4.5’s address. I assumed….” Cowley’s eyes swept the room once more, then settled on Bodie again.

“I’ll sort it out.” Impassive, Bodie now waited for Cowley's true purpose to be revealed. The visit had already gone beyond Cowley's statutory three-minute clap on the shoulder and typically demanding get-well-soon. He wondered what, after all this time, his boss wanted, particularly from a man newly out of a coma. He didn’t have to wait long.

“There’s something I can use your help with, 3.7.” Troubled blue eyes watched, evaluated.

At attention, even lying down in bed, Bodie nodded, expectantly. “What, sir?”

“I need to send Doyle to the Hebrides in two days. He’ll be gone a week, maybe longer. Ach, don’t laugh like that, man, he won't be counting trawlers,” he added, as Bodie attempted to stifle his laughter, but a smile broke out on the Controller's face as well. “I need a trained man to go in, question the islanders about suspicious movements that have been noticed in the fishing fleet off Northern Ireland. Their men fish the same waters, and there may be a connection.”

Bodie finally managed to stop chuckling and looked soberly at his boss. “So where do I come into it? I’ve not been cleared for duty. Sir.”

“Doyle has refused every assignment that would take him away from London since you were brought to Kelvedon, and I need him on this one. No one else will do. He has some relations on his mother’s side that will allow him to slip in without appearing to be an outsider.” Gimlet eyes waited, assessed Bodie's reaction, as if the agent should twig immediately, but he didn’t.

“He’s refused….” Bodie stopped mid-sentence, processing the thought.

Cowley took pity and finished it for him. "He's been your most faithful visitor, all this time.” He gave Bodie a stern look. “He won’t leave until you tell him he can. No matter what I order him to do.”

The puzzled look cleared, and stoic once more, Bodie nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

2 May 1983 (evening)

“Stuart needs to bathe oftener,” Doyle stated callously, as he walked into his friend’s room and placed a brown paper bag on the floor between chair and bed. He set himself down loosely in his usual chair, wet from head to toe and looking a bit like a wet mop. His jacket, soaked from rain, gave off an odour that might be two parts wet dog to one part loading dock, with a generous splash of rubbish skip for good measure. “I think he’s lost his sense of smell. That thing he calls a car reeks like he lost a liver sandwich down the back seat and gave up looking for it. Last year.” He smiled, watching Bodie turn towards him, his shoulders shifting and the neck muscles moving as he twisted in bed. A small thing, true, but something in Doyle’s heart lifted to see it happen. God, was it possible to love one person so much, for such a little thing? But he lost his smile when he saw Bodie eyeing him, raking him from head to toe, as if about to give him a tongue lashing. Which, as it turned out, he was.

“What’s this I hear about you turning down assignments, chum?” Bodie began. “Cowley needs you to do a job, you do it. ‘S why we’re his top team. Can’t let Anson or Lucas start pinching our assignments,” 3.7 added with a scowl.

The attack was unexpected, and Doyle hadn’t protected his flank. Gored, he glared back at his best mate and tried to restrain himself from chewing a strip off Bodie's hide in return. For one thing, the Alleyn’s Wood staff wouldn’t have appreciated it, not now that Bodie was awake and keeping down solid food. For another, he loved the crummy bastard.

“I turned him down twice, that’s all. Once, he had a wild hare about some shop front in York, got a tip about strange movements and unmarked boxes being left round the back at all hours that didn’t look quite right. Murph went up, checked into it: turned out to be a new Oxfam setting up.” Doyle was indignant, as if Cowley’s omniscience should have foreseen the false trail. “And the other was last week, near St Ives. Somebody’s grass let on there was something funny going on at a tatty B&B called the Toby Jug. As if! The mugs hanging from the rafters would’ve scared away any criminal stupid enough to use the place. Least that’s what McCabe said after he checked it out. Not terrorists, just a load of OAPs on holiday,” he concluded, satisfied that he’d been right to refuse Cowley both times. "Nothing dangerous there, mate."

With a rising voice, Bodie contradicted, “Doesn’t matter if it’s Devon, the backside of Wales, or the bloody Shetlands, Doyle. You should’ve gone!” A flicker of anger touched Bodie’s eyes when he reached the end of his retort.

Curling his fingers into fists by his sides, Doyle sat up straighter in his chair and stared hard at his friend, firmly keeping the lid on his temper though it was beginning to boil. He’d forgotten how quickly Bodie could get up his nose when he wanted to. How could he seriously believe he was in love with a 'duty-first' arse like this? “What’s it to you? You were out cold when it happened, and it’s over now.”

“It matters because Cowley needs you to do a job. Hear he needs you again, up on Harris or what not. The Hebrides. You’re going!” Bodie insisted. The room positively shimmered from the tension between them.

Furious, Doyle retorted, “How dare you tell….You ungrateful little….” The red streaking his vision wouldn’t let him finish either thought, but had him on his feet an instant later, hissing, “Dammit, I will go! See you in a week, mate. Hope you’ve graduated from the wheelchair and catheter by then!” And Doyle thumped out of the room, leaving behind the paper package he’d brought with him.

*** ******* *** ******* *** *******

With 4.5 gone, Bodie had a moment's remorse, then a renewed flare of anger. What was his berk of a partner doing, refusing Cowley?

A moment later, a young nurse poked her head in. “Everything all right, Mr Bodie?”

With a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he answered, “In the pink. Be a love and lift that brown paper bag up here, okay? Doyle left it when he had to go.”

She came into the room to lift the bag from the floor to his bedside table and said politely, “That Mr Doyle. What a loyal friend he’s been to you, come to see you on a bank holiday and the traffic must be terrible out there. And here practically every day just to sit and talk, week in, week out. Peeked in every once in a while and I’d hear him talking to you about the cricket match out the windows, like as not.”

Bodie glanced at the windows with puzzled curiosity. They'd meant nothing to him before. Then he looked back at his new informant: twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, brown eyes, brown hair. Dimples. “There’s a cricket pitch out there?” It had been raining for three days straight and he’d seen nothing beyond the windows except a soggy, empty field.

“Yessir. The local boys are out there nearly every day. There’s a new bowler who’s supposed to be ever so smart. Least that’s what I heard Mr Doyle telling you one day.” She smiled at him. “All month long, Mr Doyle was in here, chatting away with you about the game if they were playing. Good as a commentator on the telly, he was.” There was a soft sigh. Doyle had an admirer.

But Doyle hated cricket, and only watched it after much cajoling and a great many bribes. Whereas Bodie would play or watch the game for any reason, and followed the sport’s top teams through the papers every day. It didn’t add up.

And this room. Cowley hadn’t paid for a private room.

Two mysteries for the price of one. He looked winningly at the nurse and asked, with that little-boy-lost look that worked nearly every time, “Think you can help me into the chair? I’d like to go for a spin.” Bodie was swinging his legs carefully over the edge of the bed as he spoke, plan already in place. He needed to speak with Graves, who'd be in his office, bank holiday or no. And he wanted to talk to Nurse Jenkins, who ought to be going off duty in another twenty minutes.

He was going to get some answers.

**** ***** **** ***** **** *****

After a minor delay, Bodie phoned Graves. The solicitor couldn’t speak at the moment but promised to come see him in two days. Bodie agreed to the arrangement, giving Graves his thanks and a terse goodbye. After replacing the receiver of the visitors’ lounge phone, he glanced up at his ‘driver’, the cute dimpled thing with a soft spot for his partner. “Let’s see if we can track down Nurse Jenkins, shall we?”

They wheeled down corridors until they finally located her emerging from a loo with car keys in one hand and an umbrella clutched in the other, clearly braced for the downpour outside. When Bodie begged for five minutes of her time, she nearly objected, then suddenly, without explanation, she relented. “I’ll take him, Sarah. I think Matron is looking for you, anyhow.” With the younger woman dismissed, the nurse rolled Bodie to his room and easily helped him back into bed. Then she stored the wheelchair in a corner and sat down. “What is it, Mr Bodie?”

Ready to tell her that it was Bodie, just plain Bodie, he bit his tongue instead, reminding himself that he needed to keep her sweet since he was after information. And she was no gullible young thing, but smart and experienced; he already knew that cap of grey hair hid a good mind. He tried working at the problem sideways, rather than head on, to gain her sympathy. “I’m trying to fill in some gaps in my memory, from when I was unconscious. When was I moved to this room?” A reasonable question from a coma patient, he reckoned.

“Oh, it was the end of the first week in April. I remember because I went along to see the Oxford-Cambridge boat race in London--my grandson's in the first eight--and the day after, we moved you in here. Beautiful day it was. I remember Mr Doyle commenting on the weather.” The older woman was practically beaming as she described the day from memory, and the contrast it made to the storm raging outside now.

“So he was here when it happened?” Edging a little closer to his real goal.

Jenkins gave him a considering look, as if to say ‘you don’t know?’ Then her face cleared—he was a coma patient, of course he wouldn't remember. “Mr Bodie, with the exception of the week when he was in hospital himself, Mr Doyle has been here virtually every day, or night, since you transferred from St Thomas.”

Bodie tried to hide his shock behind a bland exterior. _So that’s what Cowley meant by “my most faithful visitor”._

She continued, “He’s helped me turn you, bathe you, shave you…done practically everything except move in and watch you twenty-four hours a day!”

Now he burned with regret for the harsh words he'd used with his partner, and he wished them unsaid. _Too late, too late…._

Nurse Jenkins was still talking “…and ’twas him that insisted it be this room, so you could have a view of the cricket pitch. He even helped me put you to bed when we wheeled you here from the other room; you’re not so light as you look.” And she gave a knowing glance to the bag on his bedside table, one corner of it now grease-stained but not yet leaking. “More contraband?”

Bodie shrugged helplessly. If he looked contrite, maybe she wouldn't confiscate it. “Probably. It’s either been fish and chips or Indian takeaway ever since I woke up. Think he's got his doubts about the kitchen here.”

The nurse smiled at him, shaking her head indulgently. “He cares, that’s what. He was more worried than any of us, and didn’t bother to hide it after a while.” She looked at him carefully, then added, seriously this time, “You mark my words. I’ve seen families that couldn’t be bothered to visit men who were wide awake and suffering, and here you were, unconscious the whole time, and him in this room every blessed day. He’s a rare one, he is.”

Bodie was nodding, words slowly sinking in, not really looking at anything now as he pondered what Doyle’s actions meant.

As she rose from her chair, she added quietly, “Dr Connors gave him the long-face talk after you'd been unconscious for two weeks, but he never believed a word of it. Had faith you'd wake up, regardless." At the door, she paused long enough to add, "Get well soon, Mr Bodie. You’re needed.”

4 May 1983

Two days of waiting, impatiently, for the solicitor to show up, and when he did the answers weren’t anything like what Bodie expected.

“But I didn’t, sir. The funds for the room did not come from your private accounts.” Wizened and old he might be, but Graves appeared mortally offended at the very suggestion he would allow any client’s money to be misspent while in his care. “When you failed to contact me as usual on April first, I telephoned Mr Cowley two weeks later, and he informed me Mr Doyle was alive, so I awaited his instructions. I followed your directions to the letter, sir.”

Bodie looked at him, disbelieving. Graves paid the rents for his bolt holes and the taxes on the two cars he had stashed away, received statements from bank accounts here and abroad. He’d acted as Bodie’s man of business for years, and 3.7 had been certain the extra money for the room was coming from one of those bank accounts. “But you handed over control of my affairs to Mr Doyle?”

“Indeed I did, sir. Must say I was concerned at first what might happen to your savings, as he was a complete stranger to me.” The resemblance between Graves and Scrooge struck Bodie again, as it had the first time he’d met the solicitor. Straight out of Dickens, watching every penny with a miser’s love. “He reviewed the four usual letters containing bills, authorised me to pay them, along with the rent on the lock box in Switzerland, and I’ve not heard from him from that day to this, sir.” The memory played across Graves’s face. “A very forthright man.” From him, a compliment.

“He is.” Bodie realised he owed the solicitor an apology, and made one. “I’m sorry, Graves. I thought he’d been spending my money to pay for this private room.” Once more he scanned the four walls of a room he had only known consciously for a week.

Graves cocked his head to one side, considering. “If he’d told me to, I’d have done it, sir. What better use of the funds than for your care?”

Bodie didn’t bother correcting the man. Money was to be enjoyed actively, on booze or birds or a holiday larking about. A hospital room hardly rated consideration, but that need not concern a man like Graves. “Please draw enough from the funds to cover your trip and time today, Graves. And thank you for coming to see me.” As the elderly man silently nodded and left, Bodie realised that the mystery was a deeper one than he’d originally thought. _If the Cow isn’t paying, and I’m not, then who is?_

5 May 1983

The next day, he had an unexpected visitor who brought unlooked for news. Still warm from a round of physical therapy on the muscles in his legs and back, Bodie was recovering when 6.2 stuck his head round the door. “Time for a pint, mate?” he asked cheerily.

Grinning widely, Bodie answered, “If you’re buying, all the time in the world. Just spring me from this joint first, okay?”

Murphy slid into the chair and gave Bodie a thorough looking over. “Not bad for flat on your back nearly five weeks. Macklin’ll have your hide by midsummer, I bet.”

Nodding, Bodie replied, “If it gets me out of here, I’d do anything,” holding out his hands as if they were waiting for imaginary cuffs and Murphy had a pair at the ready. Then he shrugged his shoulders, eloquently indicating what he thought of hospitals and forced inactivity. It was an opinion shared by practically all the men in CI5.

“Thought I might see 4.5 here,” Murphy said, changing topics. “We’ve given up seeing him down the Red Lion.”

Doyle not hitting the pub? Hardly likely—the man favoured a pint as much as Bodie did. “Since when?”

“Since you came here, that’s when. Doyle’s got worse than Stuart; never in the rest room and when he is, can’t get a word out of him. Sacked out on the sofa, like as not.” Murphy continued, "We're running a pool on him for 'fewest words spoken in a week'." He chuckled. "I'm down for fifteen words. Anson's got ten--bastard. He won last week with twelve, too."

Bodie’s eyes narrowed. Something else that didn’t add up.

When Miss Dimples, as Bodie’d come to think of her, peeked round the door to check on his visitor, Murphy immediately made his excuses and got up, like a bomb-sniffing dog circling a crate of Semtex. He acted almost embarrassed to be leaving so quickly, but Bodie gave him a smirk and a wink of encouragement, wishing him well in the hunt. Dimples might want Doyle, but she’d get a different CI5 man if she only crooked her little finger.

It didn’t matter to Bodie, though. He had other things to think about, like the last remaining suspect in the mystery of who was paying the bill for his room. He'd eliminated all the other possibilities--Cowley, Graves--but the one remaining didn't make any sense. No sense at all.

**** ***** **** ***** **** *****

The next time Jenkins came to do something invasive--this time, drawing blood--Bodie was waiting with more questions. She might be sharp for an old ‘un, but he needed information and she was the best source. The needle was poised over his vein when he said, “It must cost a pretty penny to get a private room here. How much would it be, beyond what the NHS covers?”

Without turning a hair, she slipped the needle in and answered simultaneously, “Thirty pounds a week.”

“Bloody hell!” he gasped, not at the pain in his arm but at the realisation of how much the room had eaten into his partner's savings. Rapidly, Bodie began making calculations, not really seeing Nurse Jenkins any more. “Must’ve cost him—“

“Nearly one hundred thirty pounds,” she completed smoothly, withdrawing the needle as she added, "So far." She had his undivided attention now. “He cares about you, dear. As if you didn’t already know.” After smoothly applying an elastoplast to the puncture, she patted his arm and carried away her vial, leaving him in swirling confusion.

8 May 1983

On the sixth day without Doyle’s visits to break the boredom, Bodie thought he might have to use his jungle training to escape from the well-intentioned staff at Alleyn’s Wood. Breakfast at half eight, wash at nine (now allowed to do it himself, a minor advance, ta very much), mid-morning jab, mid-morning pill, mid-morning nap, lunch, followed by another round of the same with the addition of physical therapy. It had been the same ever since he woke up. It was going to drive him mad.

Getting to or from the PT room in the afternoon offered a change of pace, but what he did there was boring too. Terence, the therapy trainer who was having him do leg lifts and arm circles until his muscles protested, obviously wasn’t used to Bodie’s ill temper. Offering kindly suggestions and hints for doing better tomorrow at the end of their session, he was unprepared when 3.7 gave his unvarnished opinion of how fed up he was with repetitive exercise. Bodie lashed out, intending the killing blow to be neat and effective, but Terence dodged and dealt a return blow of his own that caught Bodie flat-footed. “Mr Doyle never complained when I told him which ones to do. Polite. Thanked me even.” He continued packing up the equipment in a chest, wiping down the mat Bodie had just finished using.

“He never. Ray hates exercise like this same as I do, he told me so when he was here two years ago.” What did this muscle-bound moron know about his partner? Bodie had the upper hand in information, even as he wiped sweat from his shoulders and pulled his still-weak left arm through the pyjama top sleeve. That’s what made Terence's next words such a shock.

“I wasn’t talking about for himself. When I gave Mr Doyle your regimen last month, he asked for details on repetitions and over-stressing. Didn’t want to harm you when you couldn’t warn him about pain.” Terence finished cleaning the equipment, then he straightened up and looked right at Bodie. “You’d have four more weeks of therapy, guaranteed, if it hadn’t been for the work he did to keep you in trim. Better thank him for doing it while you were unconscious.” _And couldn’t complain_ were the unspoken words that followed his rebuke. From there, Terence moved silently to the parallel bars and his next patient. Bodie barely remembered the wheelchair ride back to his room; Terence's coup d'grace had stunned him.

And he was still stunned when Jenkins entered his room a few minutes later, bearing his evening tray. One glance at him and she paused, setting the food aside. “Something’s bothering you. What?”

Bodie couldn’t think up a plausible lie fast enough, though he tried to settle his face into a more impassive expression. What if Terence mentioned their little chat to others on the staff? He’d look like the idiot he was. Might as well ask. “Terence said Doyle was doing physical therapy with me.” He couldn't hide the disbelief in his voice..

The older woman replied briskly, “Told you the other day: turn you, change you, bathe you, talk to you. The same with exercise--whatever was ordered, he made sure you did it. Move your legs, roll your wrists, flex your toes even. If you don’t believe me, read the therapy chart—Terence recorded what he did, day by day. It's how you got exercised every day instead of the usual three times a week.” The shock he tried to hide was still obvious, and it must have melted a little of her reserve. Putting a gentle hand on his forearm, she slipped into the chair at his side and stroked the muscles that were beginning to come back to their accustomed strength. “Only time he couldn't do as much was when his own arm was in a cast. Then Terence did most of it.” She nodded to the drawer of his bedside table. “He ever show you the snap he made me take?”

Bodie didn’t even know there was one. His eyebrows made a crooked question mark. “No.”

She let go of his arm and slid open the drawer, where cards wishing good health had been stashed. She flipped quickly through them, reaching the bottom before she found what she was looking for. “Here. Said proof might be needed one day, and he couldn’t count on your memory just then.”

The colour snapshot handed over, Bodie looked at an image of himself, facing straight ahead, asleep in the bed, a cast--which he'd never seen--covering his left arm. And beside it, another left arm in a cast, practically its twin in pose and position, with Doyle’s good right arm wrapped up and over the pillow’s top, curling around his comatose partner and drawing them close. Doyle was in profile, looking towards Bodie with a half grin on his face.

Jenkins might be no photographer, but she’d caught something in Doyle’s expression that Bodie hadn’t seen before. Or maybe he had seen it, but hadn’t recognised what it was. There was fondness, yes, but more, more than that. Even with his eyes shut, flat on his back and unconscious, the man in the photograph had Doyle’s full attention, all his energy, vitality, and…love.

“That was after we moved you, and you’d been here a few weeks by then. Was one of the few days I can remember him smiling, really smiling, the way he did at the beginning, when he first started visiting,” the nurse recalled, looking at the photograph, giving it to Bodie to hold.

Bodie turned, peering up at her. “What do you mean?”

She gave him a sharp look before she slipped into the chair once again. “You’ve seen it before, and probably done it yourself. When you know someone won’t recover, the smiles grow false, the visits get few and far between. It’s what healthy people do--stay away from permanent invalids. Who else came to visit you but himself? Only Mr Cowley, once a week when he could manage, and that a duty call of five minutes, no more. Not a one of your mates neither.” Nurse Jenkins shook her head, disappointed, then said, “Your Mr Doyle came every day, and stayed a proper visit, whether it was noon or midnight and him exhausted when he got here. Read the headlines from the paper, talked about the cricket match outside, told you jokes, even when the doctors were putting longer and longer odds on you ever waking up, dearie.”

He wasn’t looking at her any more. The photograph held his attention: a curly-haired man who seemed to have unlooked-for reserves of faith. Others had given up, but Doyle hadn’t. Wouldn’t.

She tapped the photograph’s edge as she stood again. “I call that love. The no-matter-what kind.” With his attention totally absorbed by the picture, he didn't notice precisely when she stopped speaking and left the room.

Bodie rubbed his fingertip across the snapshot, touching two casts, two men twins in plaster, caught in a flash and tucked away not to be seen. He propped the picture up on his bedside table and gazed at it. Considered what he’d learned about his partner in the space of a week: the private room. Refusing assignments. No pubs. Daily visits. PT. And now this photograph, that he spoke softly to.

“She's sussed you out, y'mad golly. The Cow oughta hire her, 'cause she saw what I never did.” He went on staring at the photograph until his eyes closed, and he slept.

31 May 1983

One week turned into two, two into three, and a second visit from Murphy—longer this time—brought word that Doyle’s little 'genealogy trip' had turned up trumps and Cowley was keeping him in the northern islands ‘til further notice. “George has been on the phone non-stop since 4.5 got there,” Murphy said, when Bodie encouraged him to talk. “Too many heavies out and about for it to all be coincidence. Doyle spotted Swift and Thompson at a local his first week, and if they’re on the ground, it’s bound to turn nasty.” Swift and Thompson, better known as Black and Blue for their hireable fists, were willing to break heads for a price, no questions asked. Murphy didn’t look pleased at the possibilities. “That story about Doyle’s mum and a late-blooming interest in family history won’t hold up if things go pear-shaped, but the Cow can’t send in reinforcements unless he wants to blow Doyle’s cover.”

“And he’s solo.” Though both men might be thinking the words, Bodie was the one to say them with a clenched jaw.

“Yeah. Hope you don’t mind a roommate, if it comes to that.”

_I’d be there to take care of him. I would! If he’d just get his arse back here, I’d…Christ, what wouldn’t I do? Tell him…what?_ But he had to throw Murph off the trail, couldn’t go on daydreaming. “Doyle’s too good. They’ll never spot him. Bet he’s toting a camera round to every little hovel, taking snaps of long-lost aunties and second cousins.”

Murphy replied, “He is good at undercover, I’ll give him that. Mixes right in, gets people to take him for granted, doesn’t he?”

_An expert, Murph. Better than I ever realised. Sitting there all the time right under my nose, and I never knew._ Bodie nodded, answering, “He’d better come back, though, before Cowley hands me over to Macklin. He'll have me in training for next year's Grand National, the nutter.”

Murphy gave a good-natured laugh. “Don't worry, Doyle'll be back. He didn’t get you well just to get himself shot up, now did he?” Bodie didn’t have time to make much of an answer, because Dimples popped her head in at just that moment, causing Murphy to rise and make his farewells. As he followed the pretty nurse out of the room, he gave Bodie back the wink Bodie'd given him a few weeks earlier, leaving 3.7 in a too-quiet room.

**** ***** **** ***** **** *****

Terence hadn’t heard a single complaint from Bodie in over three weeks, and Bodie was now ruthless in completing his therapy routine, so much so that Terence had to caution him against overdoing it. Ignoring the man, Bodie did double sets of workouts, one with the trainer in the afternoon and a duplicate version on the sly late at night, just before bed. He grew accustomed to going to bed tired, yet he could feel his health returning. Each morning he was stronger, could do more than the day before. He was walking unaided now, his balance had returned, and his muscle tone was starting to come back. It was something he wished Ray were there to see.

Even as his health improved and the workouts lengthened, Bodie still had too much time on his hands every day, and he spent most of the hours thinking. Thinking about his partner, a notorious tightwad who had parted with more than a hundred pounds of his own money, just so there’d be a cricket match outside Bodie’s window. Ray Doyle, a man who hated repetitive exercise the way oil repelled water, helping an unconscious Bodie through untold hours of physical therapy. His best mate, who’d apparently dropped every friend, every bird, and every invitation to go pub crawling, just to make a three-hour roundtrip to talk with a man who was unconscious. Every day, for weeks on end. He'd driven those miles, cracked those jokes, still hoping even as others were beginning to give up. What did that say about the Ray Doyle Bodie knew?

For starters, that he didn’t know his partner as well as he thought he did. That there was one mystery left -- but Bodie could only solve it if Doyle came back. When Doyle came back. Would that stupid op up north never end? He found himself staring at the photograph on his bedside table more and more often.

In an effort to cheer him up one afternoon, Nurse Jenkins mentioned that he might be allowed to go home in two weeks, if he continued to improve at such a rapid pace.

Bodie smiled when he heard that news, and joked that she’d have to go home with him or he’d never survive the separation. “I’ve grown accustomed to your smile. And the way you plump my pillows,” he kidded. He glanced over at the photograph again, and silently wondered whether he'd be home before Doyle was.

26 June 1983

June seemed to crawl by. Ascot had come and gone, as had a round of Test matches against the West Indies, and still no word from Doyle. Cowley assured him that the op would close soon, possibly this week, that Doyle would be pulled out as soon as the big fish were caught, but it still made Bodie sick to his stomach, thinking of his partner, solo now for weeks on end. _Partner, hell. More than that, if he’d have me. Just come back, dammit, so I can tell you I figured it out, you daft sod._

It was well past midsummer, now, but Nurse Jenkins had been wrong; the release date projected for Bodie had been pushed back to the end of July. Through June, his weight hadn’t picked up the way the dietician wanted, but Bodie didn't care. No amount of food could tempt a man with too much on his mind.

Bodie was dozing, his middle of the afternoon nap a light one these days. The solid thwack of a cricket bat had held his attention for a while, but he'd started to drowse after the Kelvedon boys posted a 50-run lead. Nearly asleep, he came back to awareness when a weight lowered itself onto the side of the bed near his waist.

Through half-raised eyelids, Bodie saw Ray Doyle sprawled out in a chair with his head on the mattress, pillowed by his arms, gradually going boneless like he desperately needed a zizz. From what he could see, it appeared 4.5 hadn’t stopped driving once he got off the Harris ferry at Uig, and Bodie had a very good idea how long that drive was. Twelve hours, maybe more. Ray needed his forty winks. Bodie could wait. Whatever they were going to say to each other, it could wait.

His hand, however, seemed to have a mind of its own. Needing to touch, it slipped among the curls, massaging the sleeping man, gently caressing without intending to rouse. Long minutes went by as Bodie looked his fill, not wanting to forget anything, needing to make new memories of someone who had let his emotions show only while Bodie had been asleep. This time, he vowed, he’d be awake the whole damned time. Not miss a thing.

“Wish you could do that to m'whole body,” mumbled Doyle, startling Bodie, who hadn't realised his partner was awake. Rolling his head to one side, he looked up at Bodie as if he were a mirage that might disappear at any moment. A black eye marred the otherwise handsome face, but the look in his eyes was soft and caring, a treasure house of love spread at Bodie's feet, his for the asking.

Bodie let his hand fall to cover Doyle’s, calmly rubbing the skin, turning it from cold into warm, a touch that went on longer than it needed to and conveyed so much more than mere warmth. His thumb slid along the delicate skin of Doyle's wrist, feeling the strong, steady pulse as he continued stroking his partner's skin. It was a caress too gentle to mean mere friendship, and Bodie prolonged it, until it could have only one meaning. “Me too,” Bodie whispered huskily, the moment now come for telling truths. His fingers moved from hand and wrist to Doyle’s cheek, stroking tenderly but avoiding the damaged eye, touching the man he thought he knew best and didn’t appear to know at all. Soft fingertips worked in a soothing rhythm, conveying the depth of his feelings as words could not. "D'ya mind?"

Doyle leaned into the touch, a smile curving his lips, and it seemed as if his eyes went from sleep-filled to elated in the space of a heartbeat. They might not be mind-readers, but their thoughts, as usual, were identical. “Room enough in there for two?”

Not bothering to answer, Bodie was already moving over, turning on his side, lifting the light blankets for Doyle to slide in next to him. He felt Doyle’s arms slip around his waist, pulling him close, the big lummox burrowing into his heat and already hogging the pillow. Bodie gathered him near, covering them both with sheets and blankets, prepared to let Doyle sleep until the millennium if it would make him happy.

So he was a little surprised when Doyle lifted his face to gaze at Bodie once more. Sleepy he might be, bone-weary even, but happiness shone out of him, incandescent. He looked as if his heart’s desire had been granted, and not by two feet of bed space, either. “Couldn’t figure out how to tell you,” he confessed, his voice tired and also a little shaky.

“Me neither.” The words earned him the broad smile Doyle reserved for those dear to him, all toothy sincerity.

Bodie soaked up that smile as if it were meat and drink. He’d been forgiven his vile, thoughtless words that sent Doyle into harm’s way alone. Now 4.5 was back, in one piece. And loved him. Everything else was irrelevant.

Doyle nuzzled into the side of his partner’s neck, restlessly hunting for comfort like one who had stood watch alone too long. Eventually he settled, his breath dropping into a slow, steady pattern, the sleep of the just. The laxness that soon spread through his limbs signalled his unconscious state.

Bodie leaned his cheek into the curls, rubbing them unseen as his eyes closed momentarily in thanks for his partner’s safe return. Then he opened them again, looked down at Doyle, and smiled. For his ears alone, he whispered, “Sleep as long as you like, Ray. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

*** ******* **** ***** *** ******* **** *****

Inspired by stories I revere: “Voice-over” by Elizabeth O’Shea, and “A Different Game” by DVS. Title and mood music provided by the song “Endlessly” (performed by Muse, on the CD “Absolution”).

With thanks to my friend PRZed for all her help.


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